Prior to around age 15, I was like most every other pubescent teenager, attempting to navigate my often-hellish home life, while also juggling being the new kid at a new school in a new state, hormones raging, with no outlet to speak of. And as is common in most similar scenarios, I despised my parents, who I saw as shiftless hypocrites (which they were), and figured I was never going to figure out how to talk to a member of the opposite sex or ever forge the happy home life I often fantasized about (which I wasn’t). But then, a series of seemingly random encounters changed everything about my outlook, and gave me something to strive for—to hold on to, as it were, and provided my life with the first sense of meaning I was able to claim for myself, that hadn’t been artificially jammed down my throat by parents.